A Cold Day In Hell

I wake up wiping sweat with my hands as my eyes get used to the lack of light around me. Something glitters, off in the distance. Something...green. I reach out in front of me to a dark empty space. I make out a small dark lit room with a bed, two night tables at my left and a television set at my right. I'm in a motel room.

"Thought you'd never wake up"

Someone's in the room with me....a woman. She's staring out the window into the abysmal night from where a neon green light shines at us. Her voice is low and swift, like swiping through water. I try to compose myself. I'm in a couch sitting in the dark looking straight at her. I'm wearing a suit, it feels uncomfortable. The air is stale and hot, dry like my throat.

"Go clean up to the bathroom, we have to go"

I want to talk but the words don't come out. My mouth feels sore and stingy. Swallowing what feels like razorblades, I stumble to an awkward stand as I notice my whole body aches. My legs and shoulders hurt, my arms are void of strength, my hands feel weird and my head hurts. Bad.

I turn to see a door, open it and head for the sink. I turn on the lights, turn on the faucet, and wash my face and mouth. I'm wearing a black suit with a white shirt and black tie. The shirt has blood on it. I look up to find my image in the mirror in front of me after being able to see properly. It scares me.

The left side of my face is bruised and my beard is full grown. It wasn't when I went to bed. But the bruising is bad. Either I was being a very naughty boy or someone really doesn't like me.

I fall back into the room shaking at the sight of my shiners were the woman stands taking puffs out of a cigarette looking cool and pretty. Her image somehow begs me to understand I was probably the luckiest idiot the night I came across such a beatiful dame. Either I said the right words or had the right money, she just looks too out of my grasp, but something about her feels like I just signed my soul to the devil. She doesn't fit with any of it. Not this room, not with me, not with those clothes.

I look at her and at the room, I know I'm not dreaming but I don't even dare ask her where I am. My head is turning, my heart is pounding and my left side feels heavy, stiff. Like something's pressing on my ribs.

"Shape up Tommy, we gotta make bail"

I smell alcohol in my clothes and wonder why am I bruised like this, why my shirt has blood on it, whose blood is it. My throat still feels like I swallowed a sword. With certain reluctance I muster -Greg- and sit on the bed for a while. She just says -What?- as I try to pick my thoughts and make up from down.

"My name is Greg"

A part of me expected her to say I was being stupid or crazy or tell me to stop playing, after all, she did call me Tommy with certain confidence. Instead a silence overwhelms the room till I finally look back at her and confront her stare. Somewhere, somehow, I struck a nerve. She stays mute standing in the middle of the room with the window looking out into the street. -Stand up- she says dry and cutting unlike before.

She doesn't pace her steps anymore and rushes me out the door, down the hallway, down the stairs to the parking lot towards a light brown Lincoln. She looks at me and asks -What's my name?- to which I stare at her, unable to respond. She's scared. She looks everywhere before popping up the trunk of the car.

"I know how this might look, I KNOW HOW IT MIGHT SEEM!!"

For a brief second I sense a small sob coming out of her mouth

"You told me to show you this if necessary. You said it might help. Tommy, we have to get out of here, now!"

After her small, nearly-impossible to hear little yelp, she motions me to look inside.

There's a man inside the trunk. Dead. His jaw is bent out of place, his eyes are white, his face is twisted and punched into a funny looking way. Some bones are visibly broken, piercing through his suit and somebody slashed his neck deep. Real deep, almost decapitated this poor bastard. I can see he's missing an ear and there's dry blood everywhere.

But the truly shocking thing at that moment isn't that I'm looking at a brutally murdered man, or the fact that I'm far away from home, or the woman, or the bruises, or the suit or the motel, but that I know this guy. I'm picturing him in my mind, fully dressed in business attire, with glasses waving his hand, extending it to meet mine. I know him, I can picture his house, I know it's his house. I have recollections of being with this man, golfing, fishing going and coming as if we were friends our whole life.

I remember him, for a second I remember my school before it all becomes a blur and wonder for just a split moment how are we conected.

I know who he was

I know I did this to him.

I know it was me who got into his house one night and did this to him. I don't know why, I don't know how. I just know I pulled up the strength and courage to do it.

I tortured and killed a man.

I can picture my hands beating him. I look at my hands; there are tattoos on my knuckles. On my left hand there are the four suits of a poker deck and on my right hand there are several markings on the backside of my palms that go up my sleave, god know how far up my arm.

When I went to bed I didn't had any tattos.

The knuckles on both hands are scratched and worn as if I've been whailing away at brick walls and shattered glass. I take a look around in search for anything that can tell me were I am. It's very dark. I look at the plaques in the car and they read NEVADA, but around me there are forest-like areas filled with pine trees. I'm not anywhere in Nevada.

I look at the woman who's now standing still on the side of the car, smoking frenetically. With the help of the light from the neon sign, I can see her eyes are glassy and bloodshot. She's taking drags off the cigarette and looking worried. She's also lightly bruised.

I'm still picturing the man in the trunk and how he looked like alive. I see him one more time. There's no way I can know how this man looked like when he was alive just by looking at the body. No one could.

I could run, shout, head the other way. I still feel something pressing at my ribs. Something is pressing at my ribs. I put my hand on over my coat and I feel it. I don't even have to look inside, I know it's there. For a brief second I wonder if it's loaded.

I move towards the woman, ask her name. Her glassy beautiful eyes look back at me. No doubt she's trouble. She stays still, swallows and says...

"Eve"

My head swirls, suddenly I feel relaxed. I grab the cigarette in her hand, take a drag and ask for the keys. I open her door and as she gets inside I get a strange feeling. I move on to the driver's seat and open the door.

Right before I get inside something stings and I turn around abruptly. Nothing. I move on, get inside, turn on the engine. It's all too natural. I drive out the parking lot and into the highway. I know I'm far away from home, have been for long judging by my state. I know I'm in trouble, somehow, someway.

I know I did that to the man in the trunk. Now I've got a hunch and by now the only genuine thing that scares me. I feel like someone's watching me. Back at the motel, before I got into the car...It was like could someone's eyes darting at my back, seering my skin.

We're a couple of miles away from the motel, none says anything. She looks forward without a peep coming out of her mouth. I can't even hear her breathing. Maybe because I'm having trouble hearing anything other than my own. A gun rests inside my coat against my ribs, I might need it. There's a dead man on the trunk and I'm making a run for somewhere at 2:45 in the morning.

I can't shake the feeling that someone's watching me.